


death pursues the man who flees

by dictatorships



Category: Dragon Age
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dictatorships/pseuds/dictatorships
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guilt is a very persistent bastard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	death pursues the man who flees

**Author's Note:**

> sigh this is all over the place kind of. i don't mind it, it's based off of a prompt ("you can run away but you can't escape your conscience") and yeah oh my god. here i listened to [this](http://homestuck.bandcamp.com/track/do-you-remem8er-me) while writing it.

About halfway to Starkhaven is when it starts.

It’s initially very small and insignificant, a tiny pang in the center of his chest he thinks he can eventually whisk away with a few words of prayer. They come automatically, words engraved into his mind, so clear he can see them on the back of his eyelids. Instead of leaving, the pang only spreads and gets worse. It moves from his chest and weaves its way through his ribs, his stomach, creeps up through his spine and takes up comfortable residence inside his head. It puts his heart in a vice, tangles up in a ball in his throat, strangles his stomach until he feels he might vomit.

Suddenly, there’s all this doubt that was never there before, questions that don’t have answers, that he could never answer himself. When he decided that this is what he had to do – return to Starkhaven, raise an army – he was secure in his decision, this was what a king did. This is what he was going to do. Then he could only think of Hawke. Hawke had been there to support him, through everything. And to some extent, he thought he might love her. But her choice to spare Anders came as a blow, a sucker punch he never saw coming.

He realizes that his actions must have been the same. At some point, he unclenches his fists (he’s not even sure when he squeezed them together in the first place) and stares at his hands. His fingernails dug into his palms tightly, they’re bleeding now.

It’s guilt, he recognizes. A seed of guilt planted in his heart that spread vines like fingers throughout his body.

 _Is this the right thing to do?_ He asks himself. _Is this what Elthina would want?_

He doesn’t know anymore.


End file.
